Divided Town: A Study of Georgetown, D.C. During the Civil War (review)

Abstract

82CIVIL WAR history Divided Toan: A Studi/ of Georgetown, D.C. During the Civil War. By Mary Mitchell. (Barre, Mass.: Barre Publishers, 1968. Pp. ix, 193. $8.50.) The field of local history offers substantial rewards to enterprising researchers , along with some formidable hazards. On the one hand, a mass of largely unexplored statistical data—the raw material of city directories , census reports, recorded deeds and wills, tax assessments, court decisions, and the like—cries out for creative interpretation and synthesis . Yet quantitative insights, to be persuasive, must be supplemented by individual memoirs, private correspondence, newspaper accounts, and other sources that highlight the variability of the human condition. In Divided Town Mary Mitchell combines both types of evidence to produce a study that is at once fascinating and frustrating for those interested in urban development and social change. A free-lance writer and the wife of a Washington attorney, Mrs. Mitchell was drawn to the subject of wartime Georgetown for "human interest " reasons: she hoped to document the impact of the Civil War upon family relations, population growth, and changing patterns of community leadership and outlook. Secondarily, she sought to include much specific information about existing Georgetown homes, for the benefit of both sight-seers and historic preservation groups across the country. This orientation goes far to explain the peculiar merits and defects of her work. She is at her best in describing the reactions of ordinar}' men and women caught up in the vortex of war. Her sharply drawn vignettes of such figures as schoolteacher Lydia Scudder English, Judge James Dunlop, socialite Britannia Kennon, and preacher-spy Thomas N. Conrad , capture admirably the human side of the conflict. Most Georgetown residents left no written memoirs of any kind to mark the wartime crisis, however; so Mrs. Mitchell has to rely upon a confused welter of indirect evidence to reconstruct their experience. Her thorough research into wills, tax records, deeds, and city directories turns up some very significant socioeconomic data; but it does not answer the questions that are of primary concern to her. She therefore tends to impose an essentially romantic vision upon neutral materials, often reading unsupportable implications into raw facts. We are told, for example, that Georgetown masters were very lenient toward their slaves; and the case of Mrs. Bisco, a "frail and retiring" widow of sixty-three, is cited as proof. This lady held on to her slaves at her husband's death, hiring them out for an annual return of $900 (or 5.8 per cent) on her investment . So far, so good; but that scarcely qualifies Mrs. Bisco as a humanitarian , or suggests that "even old Ezekiel" was "proud" to contribute to her support. The author's antiquarian interest in stately old homes likewise betrays a temperamental affinity for the antebellum elite. (She says little about the dwellings of workers.) But the most serious flaw in the book is the lack of any analysis of the political structure of Georgetown, either before or during the war. BOOK REVIEWS83 Northem-bom citizens (who constituted only one-eighth of the Georgetown population in 1861) held multiple civic offices, it appears; but no indication of voting patterns or party affiliations is given. We are left at the end feeling as if we have been wandering all over a small town without ever reaching its center. All of which is not to say that Mrs. Mitchell's effort has been useless. She has done an immnse amount of original research that future historians of Georgetown will find indispensable . Further, she has written a lively and interesting book, that deserves to be read and enjoyed by a wide audience. Maxwell Bloomfteld Catholic University of America Confederate Operations in Canada and the North: A Little-Known Phase of the American Civil War. By Oscar A. Kinchen. (North Quincy, Mass.: Christopher Publishing House, 1970. Pp. 254. $4.95.) Oscar Kinchen retells the familiar, not "litüe-known," story of exploits by Confederates and their sympathizers in the North and Canada. Beginning with an account of Morgan's raid and the Michigan's capture, he moves on to discuss the Canada mission of Jacob Thompson and Clement Clay, then switches back to...